


Interlude III

by Guede



Series: Theory [7]
Category: Hornblower (TV), King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Cooking, Derogatory Language, F/M, Family Dinners, Humor, Jealousy, Light Bondage, Living Together, M/M, Multi, Philosophy, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, School Uniforms, Squirrels, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:13:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28278192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Easing into commitment, though shh! Don't say that word out loud.
Relationships: Arthur Castus/Guinevere/Lancelot, Gawain/Tristan (King Arthur 2004)
Series: Theory [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2058675
Kudos: 3





	1. The Second Supper

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LiveJournal in 2005.

“Park Slope? Why Park Slope? There are better restaurants closer to here, and then you don’t have to venture into Yuppieville where the water mushes your brains.” Ties and belts swung out of the closet, nearly striking Arthur in the face, then swung back to flop against Lancelot’s back. The other man cursed as he stumbled over something and shoved himself deeper into the closet. He paused. “Arthur? Why do you have hollow-points back here?”

“Park Slope’s a perfectly decent neighborhood, and it’s far enough from either of our places to qualify as neutral ground.” Arthur pushed at his suits, trying to move them so he could see. But the heavy fabric meant they preferred not to, and though his closet was surprisingly deep, its other dimensions left a little to be desired. Lancelot wasn’t exactly a bulky man, but he still took up room and—Arthur smacked the hand away from his hip.

The suits Lancelot shoved into him as the other man stumbled out muffled Lancelot’s hissing, but Arthur knew it was there. He ignored the pouting silence behind him and wriggled around till he’d found the box to which Lancelot was referring.

“And of all people, Lancelot, you’ve no room to criticize about a Yuppieville.” Guinevere edged up somewhere to Arthur’s left and started to rattle the tie rack. “Arthur, you’re wearing the black, right? Then I think you should go with the—”

“Excuse me? Miss I-Drink-Only-Imported-Limited-Edition-Expresso? I might, just might, allow the word ‘metrosexual’ to wander in, but not yuppie. Yuppies are the arses who install million-dollar security systems, then give the codes to their daughters with shady boyfriends and wonder why they end up calling Interpol.” Bedsprings creaked as Lancelot flopped on them. He bounced around for a few seconds before getting bored and coming back to tuck Arthur’s shirt into his trousers. “And you shouldn’t wear a tie at all. You’re having a friendly dinner with your grad student, not taking out a head of state.”

Once they’d slipped the tails of Arthur’s shirt down his waistband, Lancelot’s fingers apparently decided they liked being there and stayed. They stroked around while Arthur cursed and ineffectually batted behind himself, then finally settled on the tops of Arthur’s hipbones. Lancelot nuzzled up to the flat stretch between Arthur’s shoulderblades and began nipping at Arthur’s hairline.

Then he yelped and pressed even harder into Arthur. Guinevere’s laugh rose above the whistling of the belt with which she was toying. “He should wear a tie. Gawain’s used to seeing him wear one, and the whole point’s to make this as everyday as possible. Sudden changes aren’t good.”

* * *

“Fuck, I was going to look up the place online and figure out if they’ve got a dress code. But I got blindsided by Holberg earlier and now there’s no time.” Some past grad student had left a head-to-thigh mirror hanging on the back of the small storage closet and Gawain was now putting that to good use.

Dust rose as Galahad flopped from beneath his stack of books. He hung his head upside-down over the couch edge and critically eyeballed Gawain. “Shoes. Shirt and pants without stains or holes. What’s the problem?”

Well, for one thing, Tristan had left the window open. Ever since he’d walked in for last-minute prep, there’d been an increasing number of squirrels chittering outside their office. So far they’d stayed in the tree, but their anxiety seemed to grow in direct proportion to how quiet Tristan got, and since Gawain could currently only tell that Tristan was around by directly looking at him…Gawain went over and shut the window.

Tristan was perched on the arm of the gigantic, sagging, incredibly old sofa every grad student affectionately referred to as the Wall because of its reputation for holding back the demons of writer’s block. But from the look on his face, the couch wasn’t helping much with whatever dilemma on which he was chewing. “Don’t ask about his first philosophy professor. And don’t ask about what he did after university.”

“…don’t we already know what he did after university?” At the other end of the Wall, Galahad disappeared back beneath his books. Frantic scribbling could be heard; it was the last day for submitting summer research abstract first-drafts and as usual, he was late. “Hey, I think I can still hear Vanora clicking around. Get her advice—she’s his secretary. Though I thought you knew clothes-stuff…”

“What, because I sleep with men? Galahad, how long have you been living with me?” Of course, now Gawain would regret not letting Grandma Yvie smack Galahad a few more times. He sighed and started yanking a comb through his hair.

* * *

“Tie.”

“No.”

“Tie.”

Arthur quietly stepped around the arguing pair to the bookshelf. He deposited the ammunition in a hollowed-out book, then cast about for his cuff-links.

“You never answered my question about those,” Lancelot suddenly said. He miraculously tore his stony stare from Guinevere, only to turn it on Arthur.

“I think I was rearranging and left them behind.” The cuff-links turned up on the dresser beneath a wad of receipts from Lancelot’s wallet. After fastening his cuffs, Arthur automatically started sorting and throwing away the out-of-date receipts. “I’m not wearing a tie. What I asked was whether I should wear the black coat or not—it seems a little morbid, doesn’t it?”

Both Lancelot and Guinevere blinked at him. What with the way they were standing, like a matched pair of folded-arm grumpy caryatids, they looked straight out of an old Hollywood comedy.

“You’re asking if you’re too morbid?” Lancelot finally said in a faint tone. He actually limped over and put his hand to Arthur’s forehead. “Does this mean I can introduce you to the color ‘tan’?”

“Metrosexual, my bloody…stop groping him. You’re mussing his shirt, and he’ll have to change if you keep that up.” Whereupon Guinevere shoved Lancelot aside and began her own version of mussing, which wasn’t entirely free of sneaky caresses. She lifted her chin and h’mphed at Lancelot, who sourly retreated to a chair. Limping. “Oh, stop that. Your ankle’s almost healed. And black’s classy. Whether it’s funeral or not depends on the cut.”

Lancelot derisively wriggled fingers at her. “Season, darling. It’s summer. Doesn’t he have an off-white one in there?”

Arthur carefully pried Guinevere’s fingers from his neck before she could forget he wasn’t Lancelot and clutch too hard. While they argued, he went in search of a belt. Those ended up in the oddest places…

* * *

“…I wish I could get hair like this without having to mess about with deep conditioners and perms. It’s got so much body,” Vanora cooed, fluffing Gawain’s hair. She was beginning to creep him out, but her two-inch perfectly manicured nails were enough to keep him from edging away.

Thankfully, she stopped playing with it to poke around in her purse, searching for a comb to lend him. Maybe she thought it was nice, but she didn’t break combs every other week just trying to get the damned stuff pulled out of the eyes.

“And don’t mention my mother,” Tristan muttered. Some squirrel smacked its paw against the window-glass and made them all jump, but Tristan only glanced once before going back to pressing his fingers hard against his lips. “People get weird ideas about her and Arthur and that embarrasses him. And don’t embarrass him—he freezes up and then he stonewalls you for days afterward.”

“Oh, is Arthur finally carrying out loco parentis duties?” Vanora popped a comb at Gawain and a mischievous look at Tristan, who might have been yanking a chewed thumbnail out of his mouth.

Galahad tossed in his dime’s worth, though of course nobody was taking. “Christ, Gawain, your love-life’s the talk of the department.”

“It most certainly is not, and another word out of you and I’ll remind you a thing or two about mothers.” It really was hilarious how Galahad instinctively flinched from Vanora’s scolding finger, and Gawain didn’t feel a single pang of guilt about laughing. While he frantically yanked at his hair, she rounded further on Galahad. “Kitty and I are very discreet, thank you. Like friends should be. _You_ , on the other hand, have girls talking about you left and right, and it’s not with any help from me.”

“Whatever you heard, they were exaggerating. And overreacting.” The books once again consumed Galahad until all that could be seen were random curly tufts.

Tristan was…fidgeting. Gawain had to check twice because he couldn’t believe it, but the other man was actually kicking his heels against the couch. Well, great. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t have a last-minute attack of nerves—and so far he wasn’t yet having a full one—but if Tristan was that nervous then that wasn’t a great omen.

“Maybe I should come,” he muttered.

Vanora looked like she was torn between patting him on the head and whacking him on the head. “Tristan, once I was talking to Arthur during a football game when he stopped, looked at the opposite bleachers, and told me he had to go because you wanted something. He’d notice.” Pivot. “And Gawain, you’re about to yank out those beautiful locks. Calm down, both of you. Everyone has to do this at some point.”

* * *

“Of course, you ran off to your conference and left us to handle it on our own,” Guinevere said. She straightened Arthur’s coat lapels, then briskly patted him down.

“I’m sorry?” He reached past her to get his watch from the dresser, which he slipped on before running his fingers through her hair. “You don’t…actually want to come, do you?”

Her nose wrinkled, but she took a moment to answer. She hooked her fingers behind his belt and pressed her forehead to his shoulder, then pecked him once on the cheek and once on the lips. “You already apologized for that. And…I do, a little, but I think I’d have to strangle Lancelot halfway through to keep him from laughing. Better if you go it alone.”

The lump on the bed grew an arm and batted at her leg. “I can be tactful, you know.”

“Of course you can. And I can paint myself blue and go prancing in Central Park, but the chances of that happening are worse than a million-to-one.” Guinevere whacked away his hand before walking out of the room—almost. She paused at the door. “Oh, Arthur? While you’re out, can you pick up a box of tampons for me?”

Arthur couldn’t immediately think of a proper reply for that, so his reflexes took over: he nodded. Whereupon Guinevere left and Lancelot sat up, a bit open-mouthed. “I really thought she liked you. She _sleeps_ with you and she never argues with you about who has to deal with the wet spot…”

“One could see that as a considerate warning about her mood next week,” Arthur suggested. Upon further reflection, he decided he’d had to buy more embarrassing things under worse conditions. It was merely an errand, and it was ridiculous to treat it as anything but such. “Do you know what her brand is? No, never mind, I’ll just look in the bath…”

For a moment, all was silence from Lancelot’s corner. And then the other man leaped up and trailed after Arthur, his limp having completely disappeared in his gesticulating. “You’re—you’re actually going to buy—why are you worried about this dinner with Gawain again? Unless you somehow end up with him in an alley, I don’t see what you’ve got to worry about. And that’s not going to happen even if you were free because he’s not your type.”

“I’m worried because Tristan likes him a great deal and I’ve never seen that happen with Tristan before. Moreover, I’ve gotten rather fond of Gawain myself. He’s got a bright future ahead of him, and I don’t want it ruined because of personal issues. It’s already a bit tricky, given what I am to him and Tristan.” Arthur poked around beneath the sink till he’d found a half-used box; he noted the brand and also the pertinent details about absorbancy and size. Not much difference from paying attention to colleagues’ coffee habits and enemies’ bullet-caliber preferences. Or so he told the stubborn flush along his jaw. “And what is my type?”

Lancelot glowered. “Me.”

He continued to look irritated even after Arthur had stood up and backed him against the door, and only deigned to relax after Arthur had apologetically—mostly that—tongued him into it. His hand came up to toy with Arthur’s collar. “If you work past the nerves, you’ll be fine. You make politeness qualify as a deadly weapon. And it’s a good thing you didn’t wear a tie. Then when you come back, that’s one less piece of clothing—”

“Oh, I’d better go. It’s a bit of a walk from the subway,” Arthur said, holding up his watch. He kissed Lancelot fast and hard, then made his get-away while the other man was still trying to stand up.

“You’re getting far too good at that,” Guinevere grinned. She had come back to lean against the doorway, and when he came close enough she reached out to tuck part of his shirt back into his trousers. “Though he’s more tolerable when he’s wobbly. I’ll have something on the stove if your appetite doesn’t come back till you’re home. So go. Scare the hell out of Gawain and then make nice. That usually works.”

* * *

The door closed on Gawain. Vanora patted Tristan on the shoulder, then also left. And so it was down to Tristan, Galahad, and what sounded like a horde of fretting squirrels pawing furiously at the window. Their stupid little fucking claws were making horrific screechy noises.

“Make them stop, goddamn it.” Galahad poked around till his feet hit Tristan, and then he shoved hard. “What the hell’s with them? Does this happen every time you get upset? You send it along your magic mental connection to the squirrels and they act out your rage and insecurities?”

“My rage and insecurities.” Only Tristan could make that sound absolutely withering.

Too bad the effort was wasted, since Galahad really, really didn’t give a shit about anything except getting the fucking rodents to shut up. “Oh, for…I had to dig into Freud and Jung yesterday for a reference. It was scarring, but that’s not the point. Make them—”

\--they stopped. Suddenly everything was quiet, and if Galahad hadn’t still been unclenching his teeth, he would’ve wondered if he had just imagined the whole thing.

He peeked over the edge of his book. Tristan hadn’t moved. “That is fucking creepy.”

“Did Gawain ever have to do this before?” Tristan asked, staring at the far wall.

If Gawain hadn’t made Galahad swear to be nice to his boyfriend for this one night, Galahad really wouldn’t have been able to help himself. As it was, he had to bite his lip for a couple minutes before he was sure he wouldn’t laugh. “L. A. slums, yo. Gawain couldn’t exactly be out there with his liking guys. So no, no meetings of the father-whatever of the secret boyfriends. Look, relax. Come on. Do you really think Arthur, of all people, is suddenly gonna flip and turn drill-sergeant on ‘wain?’

* * *

It was like being in the army. Not that Gawain actually knew what being in the army was like, but from what he’d seen in movies and heard from the guys that had made it out of the neighborhood via fatigues, he knew in there nothing could be off at all, orders and rules couldn’t be disobeyed, or asses got kicked.

The restaurant was okay. Nice. The servers were very nice about pointing where to go and listing the night’s specials and suggesting with a high-pressure gleam in their eyes what drinks to get. And the silverware wasn’t complicated, thank God. But it just…there seemed to be some kind of code, and Gawain was just a little to the left of it. Everyone else wasn’t exactly dressed alike, but there was a similarity to their clothes nonetheless, like a patina that was glossy everywhere except where Gawain sat. And they all seemed to know when accidentally backing a chair into somebody merited a ‘sorry’ and when it needed a full ‘I’m sorry about that,’ and they all had designated times for answering their cells and scolding their kids and it was like high school. Unspoken gangland lines drawn all over.

“Ah, Gawain…I think the bread’s quite buttered.” Arthur coughed politely and nodded at Gawain’s hands.

Which had been fooling around with the same piece for the last five minutes. “Oh, right. Shi—I mean, sorry. And, um, thanks.”

“That’s all right. It just looked as if you were going to flip the butter at her.” Nod at someone over Gawain’s shoulder. Judging by the look on Arthur’s face, Gawain had a feeling it was the teenage girl who’d been chattering for the past ten minutes to her cell about the two hotties that had just walked in.

Gawain pretended to look at his menu. “Oh. You, uh, sure you don’t want me to? I think it’d shut her up…”

“In this case, I think the Stoic’s approach to life would be more socially acceptable.” The waiter swung by and Arthur did something with his fingers that, after nearly four months in New York, Gawain still hadn’t figured out how to do. It promptly brought the man to their table, perky pencil poised over perky pad. “I think we’re ready. Gawain?”

Oh…fuck. Fuck. Um. Not a good idea to look like you were stalling even if you were, so…Gawain randomly pointed to an appetizer and an entrée. “I’ll have those.”

The server’s eyebrow started to arch, but he was well-trained in giving the customer whatever they wanted, so his twitch instead ended up in his nose where he could pretend he was sneezing. He apologized brightly and turned to Arthur, who ordered some kind of noodle thing. In the meantime, Gawain finally got around to reading the menu. He winced.

Well, the entrée wouldn’t kill him. He might even enjoy it. But hopefully the appetizer was small so he could just drop it in the plants by which they were sitting. And hell, there went the trip he’d been planning to catch the latest comic-book movie adaptation.

After the waiter left, they fell back into awkward silence. The teenager squealed about Arthur’s eyes and Arthur promptly tried to hide behind the salt-shaker. Some couple a table away ripped on what they thought were highlights in Gawain’s hair, and he just avoided flinging the damn salt-shaker at them. “It’s natural, you jackass—sorry.”

“I’m not your mother,” Arthur said, amused. “No need.”

“Well, yeah, but…so how’s the conference in July looking?” God, this was going so badly. If it were possible, Gawain would have quietly excused himself and gone to drown in the toilet.

Arthur blinked. “It was moved to August due to a conflict with the convention center. I thought I mentioned that to you yesterday.”

“You…did. I…forgot, sorry. Um.” Gawain kicked once at the table, hastily pressed down on it to make it stop rocking, and then smiled nervously at the old woman who’d stopped rambling to her dog to watch. She gave him the evil eye and he barely swallowed his urge to curse her out.

This was going so, so badly. And he’d thought it wouldn’t be a big deal? Christ.

* * *

“You know, he never actually said what those hollowpoints were for.” Frantic chopping, occasionally interrupted by a flourish as Lancelot finished off the scallions, or the garlic, or whatever Guinevere had given him to chop up. Ever since she’d made the mistake of letting him watch Iron Chef with her, he’d always had to proclaim his victory over the vegetables in some way. Getting the Food Channel hadn’t helped—Lancelot preparing crawfish was a scary, scary thing.

She dashed some oil into the wok and began heaving in food. “Putting in a gun and making messy holes in people?”

“Ha-ha, Guin. Think he was dodging the issue again, or just in a hurry?” Little specks of garlic went flying up to stick to the wall in front of the sink. “Doesn’t it worry you just a little that we’ve been here a third of the year and we still don’t know where all the weapons are?”

“Well, I told you to make an inventory, but you kept getting distracted. And I’m impressed—you’re actually considering that Arthur isn’t doing something merely to give you the run-around.” Spicy smoke boiled up from the pan; Guinevere smacked on the kitchen fan with her elbow and then made a quick run to the sink to rinse off her fingers. She picked up the spatula, gave Lancelot’s arse a test whack with it, and wandered back to the stove. “Don’t even think of flicking that garlic at me.”

So instead an oven mitt hit the back of her head, and only thanks to her hairspray did it bounce onto the floor instead of into the pan. But when she turned around to glare, all she saw was his back. Of course, he had to go over the top and innocently whistle, too. “You’ve had plenty of time to catalog, too. You organized my DVD collection in one afternoon, damn you.”

“Still can’t figure it out, I take it.” Guinevere flipped about stirfry with one hand while with the other, she dug around for the jar of dried chili peppers. Usually she liked two, Lancelot went for four or five…she tossed in three. It would’ve been fun to throw in eight and then make herself a salad, but Arthur might end up eating some as well.

“Where the _hell_ did you put my—never mind. So why don’t you know where all the weapons are?” For once, Lancelot was being responsible and picking off the flecks from the wall.

Maybe a little sesame oil. No…the wok was a bit too hot now. And a little cramp had just squeezed Guinevere’s insides. She told it very firmly that she was wearing a very nice thong and she didn’t want to spend the evening scrubbing blood out of it. It could hang on for another half-hour.

“…you were distracted, weren’t you? I wondered why the couch looked different—you had it reupholstered, didn’t you?” Lancelot was grinning fit to be smacked again. 

But Guinevere needed her spatula and there weren’t any other ones in reach. “The sangria ice cream stains didn’t blend in quite as well as your butterscotch ones did.”

She hid a grin herself as Lancelot started to choke. He finally heaved himself around, eyes big as eggs, and stared his question.

“You should try that sometime,” Guinevere airily said. “Hmm, it looks like we’ve even got a carton. Mine, though.”

* * *

For the past six years, Arthur had spent most of his coffee-breaks listening to Vanora’s tales of raising children and preventing breakouts of hell. Now he was wishing he hadn’t exchanged that for…interesting email conversations with Lancelot or Guinevere just as Vanora’s children had started to hit dating age. He could have used the advice. “How’s your dinner?”

“Oh. Um, fine.” Gawain surreptitiously dumped more of his appetizer in the plant, then munched far too enthusiastically on his main dish. He vigorously nodded.

One would think that between teaching as a college professor and running covert operations for the British government, the method for handling nervous boyfriends-of-somewhat-adopted-son would have come up. But no, it hadn’t, and Arthur was left more or less on his own.

He took a deep breath, looked about—most of the people sitting near them had left, which should remove some of the pressure—and then picked up his fork. “So how did you and Tristan meet? All he said was it involved a tree.”

Gawain jerked and generally acted as if Arthur had crammed a rock down his throat. But he recovered soon enough and warily answered. “Well, that was the second time. He came by with a message during…that one lecture where you came in with your clothes messed up.”

Arthur flushed. He absently wondered if he could blame it on the low lighting or the spices. “Oh. That would have been right after my meeting with Lancelot.”

“I guess he’s started coming after class finishes now?” There was a hint of levity in Gawain’s voice, but it quickly disappeared when Arthur didn’t immediately react. The other man coughed uncomfortably and flipped around his knife. “Uh…because Galahad and I never see him around. Just Guinevere.”

“Actually, Lancelot doesn’t particularly like coming to my office. Vanora and he got off to a bad start, and I don’t think he’s ever persuaded her to relent.” After another few minutes, they could probably ask for the bill and not receive too many odd looks. The amount of food left on Arthur’s plate made him feel vaguely guilty, but if he ate any more he suspected his arteries would explode from the grease.

Gawain laughed, surprisingly enough. He fiddled with his knife a little more in a way Arthur usually associated with assassins on downtime. “How long has Vanora been your secretary? She acts like Tristan’s another one of her kids.”

“Since we got here. She’s a lovely, lovely lady whose advice has saved me a few times.” Arthur scraped at his leftovers and tried not to pay attention to the oil oozing out from beneath it. He’d eaten far worse.

Of course, then he’d been in conditions so bad that he hadn’t really been able to tell what he was eating.

“Just so you know…I’m really grateful for the job. And for your not making a big deal out of…well, Tristan and…um, thanks.” Either Gawain was struggling with the right words or he was coming down with a rare tropical disease. His face reddened and he pinched his nose, mumbling into his hand for a while before managing to say anything else. “And I’m not going to fuck it up. I swear.”

That had come out clearly enough. And Gawain meant it with every bone in his body.

Arthur suddenly felt oddly sad. No, that wasn’t the right word. Wistful, perhaps, because this probably was the last time Tristan would need him to act like a father, and Arthur wasn’t sure if he could ever risk having a child of his own. “Gawain, by now I’ve learned to trust in Tristan’s judgment. What I care most about is that he’s happy, and that he’s happy on his own terms. If you help that happen, then I don’t see where there’s anything to worry about.”

Someone rattled a plate nearby and Arthur snapped out of it. He was happy for Tristan, and for Gawain. And to be honest, he was a little relieved to have that duty over and done with. “In other words, I believe you. Now, were you thinking about dessert? Because if not, we can get the—”

“Check, please?” Gawain called over his shoulder. He gave Arthur an embarrassed look. “Sorry. But this is…really bad.”

“I know. I’m beginning to think I should stop asking Bors for restaurant tips—he and Vanora live about three blocks from here.” When the bill arrived, Arthur had already slipped out his credit card. He had it in the tray before the waiter had even let go. Then he turned to meet the protest rising in Gawain’s face. “I have to warn you, this isn’t really free. I’m sorry that this is so last-minute, but I said I’d meet with some prospective graduate students next Saturday and I accidentally scheduled for the same time that I’m meeting one of our largest donors. I know you’re not scheduled to work--”

Gawain needed a second to process all of that, but then he shrugged and grinned. “Hey, sure. Who are they headed for?”

“Probably Holberg or Chan. They’re interested in the political philosophy sub-department that Chan and I are trying to spin off.” The credit card came back almost immediately, so the place had at least one saving grace. Arthur tucked his wallet into his trousers and got up. “I also need to run an errand, if you don’t mind…”

“Nah. Tell me more about these new guys,” Gawain said. He looked relieved to finally be back on familiar territory. “They aren’t connected to anybody, are they?”

“No. I think we’ve filled our quota for interesting backgrounds for this year.”

* * *

Tristan stared at the ceiling.

The crumple of books, papers and random pencils at the other end of the couch suddenly heaved upward. “For fuck’s sake—you’ve got another half-hour before he’s even late.”

“I didn’t say or do anything.”

“And yet you’re still managing to make _me_ twitchy with how worried you are,” Galahad snapped. He dragged the rest of himself out of the books, then dove back in to retrieve a piece of paper that looked as if it was the sole survivor of the bibliographical apocalypse. “Thank God I’m done so I don’t have to hang around here any more.”

After waiting till Galahad reached the door, Tristan sat up. “Gawain’s out with Arthur. Every single girl on campus is currently annoyed with you over Saturday night, and the only one that’s still talking to you is Mariette.”

“And that’s why I’m submitting this fucking abstract and then going home.” Galahad took one step.

Then he looked back over his shoulder. “Christ, do you really need the company that badly? When was the last time Arthur killed anybody?”

Tristan rolled his eyes as Galahad flinched. The man had a memory like a sieve.

“Oh, hell with it. Come on,” Galahad muttered, coming back to yank at Tristan’s wrist. “Gawain will kill me if you go…weirder. You can help me whack Mariette’s carburetor into shape.”

That came out wrong and Galahad’s flush showed it. But Tristan did appreciate the offer. “You know, she’s even starting to complain to me about how long you’re taking on her car.”

“Ungrateful bitch. It’s a total wreck—what’s she expecting? Magic wands and sparkly things?”

On second thought, Tristan could just as easily distract himself by going up and playing with the new baby raptors, or sneaking into the pathology lab and doing some side-work on his decomposition research. Of course, neither of those options came with the possibility that he’d see Galahad get bitch-slapped in another five minutes. “Galahad. There’s a girl waving at you. She looks—”

“—fuck!” Galahad instantly dodged down a side-hall. “Come on, do your ninja thing and get a move on!”

* * *

Gawain stood in a corner and pretended he was interested in the aftershave. Which was kind of stupid given his beard, but it was either that or act like he was actually with Arthur. And as much as he did owe the man, he wasn’t about to stand by while Arthur deliberated on tampon brands. Jesus Christ, how Arthur did it with a straight face was something Gawain would never figure out.

“Damn it. I wish these had an information strip. Something like a nutrition label, where it’s all in one place instead of spread all over the package…” Arthur picked up one box, frowned at all six sides and then put it down in favor of scanning the entire aisle. For the third time. Women were starting to get over their giggly surprise and get looks in their eyes like they were going to hogtie him and toss him into the trunk of their car. “Oh, there it is. They changed the box color…”

“Do that just about every month,” one Latina woman snorted. She smiled up at Arthur. “Buying for your girlfriend? That’s so sweet—I can never get my Lucas to even look at these things. He thinks they’re evil or something.”

Okay, at this point Gawain thought it might be justifiable to just grab Arthur and make a run for it. If he stayed in here for much longer, his face was going to explode—

\--oh, shit, had it? He started to grab for his cheeks, but then he realized that those were just gunshots.

And _then_ he snapped out of L. A. ‘hood mentality and looked towards the front of the store, where two guys were waving around shotguns and semiautomatics while yelling really loudly. One woman was already on the floor and sobbing for God.

“This is a robbery!” the man with the shotgun shouted.

No shit. Amateurs. “They aren’t even looking for the security cameras,” Gawain muttered.

“Gawain, I think—” Arthur started to say.

He was interrupted by the handgun-guy running the six yards between them and screaming curses. “Hey, big man? You want to fight? Huh? You want to make this tough? Well, don’t _even fucking think about it_ , ‘cause I’ll kill all these bitches and yeah—” gun swinging away from Arthur and towards the Latin woman “-- _blow_ they fuckin’ heads—”

His head smashed into the shelf and brought the whole damn thing crashing out so he and Arthur disappeared in an avalanche of feminine sanitary products. Snarling, his partner whipped around just in time for Gawain to toss a heavy bottle of shampoo in his face. Then Gawain ran to yank up the man’s shotgun, but didn’t quite make it because he skidded on the spilled shampoo. But his arm did slap the end so the bullet went into the displays.

Soon as he hit the door, he used the frame to whirl around. The clerk had jumped over the counter and was taking out what sounded like a couple years of bad relationships on the guy, so Gawain quietly stepped around them and, wrapping his shirt-tails over his hands, pulled away the shotgun so it couldn’t accidentally shoot anybody. “Arthur?”

Who was gingerly picking his way through the boxes and boxes of pads, semiautomatic in one hand. He paused to retrieve his box of tampons, then turned to the Latina woman. “Ma’am? Are you all right?”

“Jesus, I’m fine. What the hell are you two, Green Berets?” She looked adoringly up at Arthur.

He blushed. “Oh, no. I teach philosophy at Avalon College.”

“Sign me up!” she called after him.

Still pink-cheeked, Arthur made his way to the front where the clerk was finally climbing off the first gunman. “Sorry about your shelves. I’ll pay for that and this—”

“Huh? Oh, man, no. No, it’s on the house—here, lemme get a bag for you so you aren’t waving that shit around where anybody could see it.” The clerk snatched away the tampons before Arthur could protest and disappeared around the counter. “And hey, you mind hanging ‘round till the police come by? It’ll make it easier for me to file insurance.”

“Well, don’t know what else we’d do with this…” Gawain carefully put the shotgun on the counter, careful not to get any of his own prints on it. He leaned against the door and watched Arthur do the same with the pistol. “So…”

Arthur glanced at the men on the floor, then turned to Gawain. “Thank you.”

“I was just backing you up,” Gawain said, a little surprised. The other man sounded deadly serious—and yeah, the whole thing had put Gawain out of breath, but he didn’t think it was that bad. Well, for him and his life.

“And thank you for it.” A sigh, and then Arthur stared out the window. Some memory was bugging him, maybe. “Gawain, I haven’t been able to give Tristan the safest life. All I want is to know he has someone he can trust. Do what you just did for me and I’ll be happy.”

“Uh, sir?” The clerk offered a plastic bag. “The cops’ll be around in about two minutes, and here’s your stuff.”

Gawain took it and handed it to Arthur. “That’s what I’m planning to do,” he quietly replied. Then he just had to look at the aisle they’d messed up again. “Holy shit. Thank God I never have to buy those for anybody.”

* * *

“Ow! Fuck!” Galahad gingerly backed the rest of the way out of the hood to see Gawain walk in, looking perfectly fine. He was an hour and a half late, but he was healthy and even bouncing a bit. “Hey. You survived. Go in the back and get Tristan before he has a nervous breakdown.”

“Tristan doesn’t have nervous breakdowns,” Gawain snorted. But he’d already changed directions, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t worried. “Oh, by the way, got stuck in a robbery. I’m praying really hard Arthur made it so we don’t end up on the evening news, but if we do…”

And Galahad whacked himself on the car again. He put down the wrench and wiped his hands on a rag, then went after Gawain. “Hey, the fuck do you mean by—Jesus motherfucking Christ! That was five seconds!”

“Shut the door,” Tristan mumbled. Just before dropping down and—

\--oh, yeah, Galahad damn well was shutting the door. Honestly, like there was ever anything to worry about.

* * *

“What about Rio? The pineapple?” Lancelot grunted, biting at Guin’s ear. He ducked her slap and pushed hard into her so her hands temporarily fell to the side. “Top that.”

Her knee slammed into him and they went rolling across the kitchen floor, only to fetch up against the table…and a foot. Panting, Guin and Lancelot both looked up to see a bemused Arthur stepping over them. He was carrying a small plastic bag from which he withdrew a box of tampons.

“Did you two get to…” dishes rattling in the sink “…oh, you did eat before you started this time. Is there any left? The restaurant didn’t live up to its recommendation.”

“Arthur in the lecture-hall very, very late at night. Up front. Against the podium,” Guin purred.

A sharp clinking of dishes. Lancelot growled and nipped hard at Guin’s earlobe. “God, you cunt. You two—that’s not fair! Arthur, you said no to me!”

“What are you, three?” And Guin flipped them over so she was on top. She scooted her knees up his ribs so the angle changed and oooh, fuck, that was good. Damn her and her photographic memory for weaknesses like that. “And _he_ buys me tampons without moaning like a…Arthur, why is the box bloody?”

“I might have run into a bit of trouble after dinner. Attempted robbery. That’s why I’m late.” Arthur wandered back over, looking faintly disappointed. He nodded at the stove. “Did you put the leftovers in the fridge?”

Well, if he was that hungry, he could get down on the floor before Guin ate all of Lancelot. She had teeth like pincers and they were currently stinging up and down Lancelot’s chest. “No, we got a bit carried away and finished them. So how was dinner, aside from the bad food? And—did you say robbery?”

“Awkward in places, but overall it ended well. I think those two are going to be very good for each other.” He pulled out a chair and sat so he could reach down to run his fingers through Lancelot’s hair. “Robbery. Minor thing—no one was hurt, but I had to file a police statement. A couple of smalltime criminals, nothing professional enough to worry over.”

“And I take it you took care of them?” Guin might as well have been drooling, what with how she sat up and ran her hands along Arthur’s arms. Her eyes half-closed and she started unbuttoning his shirt. “Want to tell us about it?”

Lancelot let his arms fall back and laughed at her. “God, Guin. You get off on the most bizarre—” she flexed around him “—oh, God. All right. Truce for now—wait. Arthur. Those hollowpoints? Country?”

“Left over from a jaunt to the Sudan.” Arthur was still hesitating, but at least he was answering without much protest. He got off the chair and traced Lancelot’s mouth with his finger. “I really do need to eat something.”

“There’s sangria ice cream in the freezer,” Lancelot innocently suggested.

Arthur looked embarrassed enough to cuddle. But then Guin finally applied her cleverness to something mutually beneficial and Arthur’s eyes went dark and hungry. Dessert was the _best_ part of any meal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LJ user aterlux provided Park Slope info and the ‘Yuppieville’ line.


	2. Schoolboy Nostalgia

Arthur rounded the corner. Then he stopped. Stared.

His memories of the British school system were never going to be the same.

Humming softly, Lancelot finished doing up the wide navy-blue tie, his fingers elegantly twisted around it to follow its narrow red stripes. He hadn’t gotten to the jacket and vest, which was carelessly thrown over the chair, but the dark slacks and light blue shirt were enough. Cotton that was crisp enough to beg for fingers to wrinkle it, yet soft enough to flow nicely over the spare lines of his body. Slightly bedraggled cuffs, still bearing faint stains around the edges. Inexpertly starched collar that stood crooked and thus drew attention to the curve of his neck and the black of his hair against his pale skin.

“Still fits. I’ll be damned,” he muttered. He quit fussing with his tie and stepped back so he could do a slow pivot before the floor-length mirror Guinevere had insisted on installing in the bedroom. Vain thing that he was, he admired his own arse.

Admittedly, it did look exceptionally good in those slacks. They weren’t tight but were clinging, rounding over the top and then sloping away to draw eyes into the…

Arthur shook his head and muttered to himself, and Lancelot finally got around to looking at the door. Whereupon Lancelot did something Guinevere had once characterized as ‘jazzy-hands on speed’ and nearly flung himself into the mirror. When he finally subsided, he was half-hanging off the chair back, eyes wide and hair a mess. It seemed he’d showered recently and hadn’t bothered dousing his hair with the maximum-strength gel he usually used, so now it was in rumpled curls all around his face.

All he needed was a damned pen to suck on, and he’d look exactly like October from the ‘Naughty British Schoolboys’ calendar Kitty perversely kept tacked to her message-board.

“Christ! Stop _doing_ that,” Lancelot gasped. He distractedly pulled at his hair, then tugged at his collar so his tie loosened. The top collar of his shirt wasn’t buttoned, Arthur saw. “What are you doing here?”

_I’m trying to decide between killing you for perverting cherished memories and bending you over my desk_ , suggested a voice in Arthur’s head. He smacked it away and told his prick that was not funny, damn it. “Merlin got an emergency call from one of the film studies professors, so the meeting ended early. What…ah…is that your…”

Lancelot blinked. Then he looked himself over, grinning. His hand smoothed down his tie, shifting and pulling at his shirt so it stretched tight over his shoulders and belly, and Arthur remembered just in time to remind himself never to mention who’d initiated him into sex at Oxford. God knew where Percy had gotten off to now, but if he was alive, Guinevere and Lancelot could find him and…damn it, but he’d never been as provoking as Lancelot. And Lancelot wasn’t even trying right now. “Oh, right. Guin is in one of her cleaning spasms and insisted we clear out some of those boxes we just dropped in your attic. Found our old uniforms and thought…”

“It fits!” Guinevere trilled, whirling in from the bathroom. Her face was already a bit flushed and her eyes were dancing with the simple, undiluted pleasure of victory. “Isolde can go eat her knickers, that cunt. ‘Haven’t changed dress sizes in three years.’ Well, it’s been a lot long—oh! Arthur.”

‘Fit’ wasn’t the precise term for it. Actually, Arthur could think of several better words, but they were all filthy slang from the days when he’d been able to get drunk without worrying about letting secrets loose. Guinevere’s skirt was dark blue, but tending more towards gray than Lancelot’s slacks, and it was snug around the waist while flaring voluptuously about her thighs. And it was a bit short—they certainly hadn’t gotten away with skirts that high in Arthur’s day, and British schools being what they were, that probably hadn’t changed—so her legs looked endless, long, and in serious need of…Arthur pulled his eyes upward. But not to safer ground, unfortunately, for her white buttondown was hanging loose so the tails dangled nearly to the hem of her skirt. The rest of the shirt was enticing in its looseness, its folds echoing the curves of Guinevere’s breasts and the dip of her waist. As for her tie, it was merely draped around her neck so its ends could go flying off where someone really should be catching them and twining them around their…

Either that was a headache beginning to form behind Arthur’s eyes, or he was about to damage someone. He idly wondered if Tristan knew a cheaper place to buy chairs. They were running through an awful lot of them these days.

A few years of covert intelligence had left Arthur with a very, very good sense of when he was being watched, and right now he was. Lancelot had gotten over his surprise and now speculatively eying Arthur, one knee up on the chair so he could rest his elbow on its back and thus his chin on his hand. “Guin. Stop prancing for a moment.”

“I don’t prance. You do.” But she did stop twitching her skirt about to look first at Lancelot and then at Arthur, who was beginning to feel a bit panicky. It was usually a bad sign when they stopped bickering and started thinking simultaneously.

After a moment, Lancelot pushed off the chair. He glanced over his shoulder, saw that Arthur’s desk was clear—because he’d had to do all his work in his college office in order to not get interrupted _quite_ so often—and promptly sprawled himself on it. His legs dangled wide, his head lolled not-so-innocently against the wall, and he started playing with that damned tie. “Nice to see you back early, professor,” he purred, eyes half-lidded.

“I have to start teaching again in two months. This is going to make that difficult.” _But in an American college where they don’t have uniforms that taunt you with rumples_ , whined that irritating voice. It’d shown up about a week ago and it sounded like a mishmash of post-coital Lancelot and Guinevere. An utter monster.

“You’re teaching in America. Where so much flesh is on display that it’s revolting. I’m sure this won’t affect your professionalism concerning that.” Lip curling, Guinevere daintily made her way to stand in front of Lancelot, her back to him. She normally walked with a brisk grace that blew over people as much as it mesmerized, but now she was purposely slowing it down. Letting her pleats spread and tighten around her in lewd metaphor, if Arthur happened to make the connection. “Nothing for it like a good school uniform, is there? Professor Pendragon?”

And she literally oozed up to cuddle against Lancelot’s chest, one hand reaching back to slowly unfurl his tie from its knot. She tugged experimentally on it a few times, but apparently him nibbling her ear and easing a hand beneath her shirt-tails wasn’t exactly what she wanted. Pouting, she turned her head and nipped resentfully at the ends of his tie. Though one eye rolled a little to watch Arthur’s reaction.

“Want to proofread my latest report?” Lancelot snickered. He lazily pushed the chair out of the way with his toes. His hand spent some time wandering just beneath Guinevere’s shirt before it slid out and down, down the pleats so they were crushed to show the outline of Guinevere’s thigh to ease up the skirt-hem. Her breath hitched and she did a convincing imitation of a teenage girl just swishing her foot in the water. “Or, well, we could skip to the part where you decide to forcefully improve my…application to grammar.”

“I’m terrified to think of what you were like in upper sixth. Thank God we went to schools halfway across the country to each other.” Though Guinevere didn’t sound at all terrified. More like she’d just had a bowl of cream and it’d been lovely, thank you, but now the bowl was empty. And oh, yes, Lancelot’s shirt did have buttons. She undid one, then twirled both their ties over the bared skin. He murmured low in his throat and pushed her skirt up another inch so Arthur could see nearly to her…was she wearing underwear?

Oh, for God’s sake. And they looked so _smug_.

There’d been a bloody reason the British government had started trying to recruit him when he’d just gotten into university, and it didn’t involve his tendency to stammer uncomfortably at shameless teasing. And there was also a reason he’d survived this long, which was why he shut the door and checked the window latches before finally coming over. “I hope you two aren’t terribly attached to those uniforms.”

“Why—” Guinevere started to say, but then her lips made a pink ‘o’ that was perfect for Arthur’s tongue. Because he had her by the hair, and he was thoroughly enjoying how slack her mouth was when she was off-guard.

His other hand had bypassed the teasing and twisted behind her to find that Lancelot already had a considerable erection nestling her back. Not surprising, as her arse was just as good as his. But for Arthur’s money—not that he’d ever tell him because they’d quarrel incessantly and they already did that without incentive—Lancelot made the more delicious squeaking sounds.

One thing operative training was good for was teaching one how to multitask. Another thing was how to manipulate things in dark and cramped places. So he had Lancelot’s slacks open in a trice without ever losing his grip on Guinevere’s mouth. When her tongue finally squirmed to life, he left off her and moved to biting at a glassy-eyed Lancelot’s jaw. “Because frankly, at this point I think I’m going to rip them off you.”

“That sounds—ohgod.” Lancelot squirmed, but between Guinevere’s weight and Arthur’s firm hold, he was pinned. Good. If he was going to ask for a ravishing, then he’d damn well expect to get one.

“Clearly your school records didn’t do you justice. They made you out to be a model student,” Guinevere panted. Her palms pressed against Arthur’s chest, clutched at his shirt because he’d gotten his hand out of her hair and beneath her skirt. All the way up, instead of just loitering around like Lancelot had been doing. No, no pants, and Arthur had to wonder for a moment if that’d been Lancelot’s influence or whether it’d been the other way around.

Then Lancelot made a feeble bid to meet Arthur, head twisting roughly about to snatch a kiss from Arthur’s mouth, and Arthur’s focus snapped back. He let Lancelot kiss him, and then he kissed him back to within an inch of his life. Cracked open his mouth and raped it till Lancelot was grinding his own head into the wall and his hand was clawing wildly at Arthur’s back. By all rights, Guinevere should have been complaining about being trapped between them, but she seemed to be having problems with thinking around Arthur’s thumb rubbing her clit. He could already feel the moistness of her cunt change, thicken and he knew if he were to back off Lancelot, drop to his knees and take a long lick, it’d be sweet as honey now.

“I thought I was a professor? At least, that’s what the frames on my office wall say,” Arthur said. He admitted to being amused at the way the two of them first looked stunned, then indulgent and then outraged. No, he didn’t do this often. If he did, he’d never get out of the damned bedroom. And one of his past errors probably would have caught up with him by now.

That sobered him for a moment. Almost long enough for Lancelot to yank him down and tip the balance. Bless the man for always knowing when to remind Arthur he was annoyed at him.

It was too late to avoid getting pulled in, but Arthur could duck at the last moment, tilt and go for the soft flesh of Lancelot’s throat. His lips closed over silk and he sucked around the tie while his index finger snaked up into Guinevere’s warm body. Her clit was growing hot, firmer, and her breathing on his neck was quite ragged. She’d given up on holding his shoulders and seemed to be clinging to the edge of the desk.

It was a bit of a shame to take his hands from them. And she certainly protested—a soft, whining noise that made Lancelot look at her twice. “I can’t tie a knot one-handed in this position,” Arthur told her, reasonably enough.

“And there is a position where you can—hey!” Lancelot twisted, but not fast enough to avoid having his hands pulled behind his head. Arthur kissed him again, hard and messy and full of sliding teeth, while tightening the tie around his wrists, and then while Lancelot was still gasping Arthur slipped the free end over his mouth. Fastened the gag and then ran his tongue over the silk till between him and Lancelot, it was quite sodden. And Lancelot was limp against the wall, his shirt sticking to his sweaty skin so there was a tempting stretch of throat smoothing into chest.

“And now that you’ve gotten him to shut up, can we—” Whatever else Guinevere had been about to say was cut off by a string of Welsh curses.

Ignoring that, Arthur put his hands back. Only three fingers this time, and her knees jumped open, her skirt hiked high and crushed to her belly. Some of the pleats weren’t springing back into shape, Arthur noted. She was suddenly melting into him, hands hungry all over his back and mouth pinned to a certain spot beneath his jaw that temporarily altered the rhythm of his breath. Her hips ground relentlessly backward and he could see they were taking their toll on Lancelot, who hadn’t even managed to jerk his hands once before he was moaning and trying just as hard as Guinevere to force Arthur to go faster.

Unfortunately for them, he wasn’t yet in the mood for that. Instead he let Guinevere ride his fingers, only thrusting and twisting them enough to meet her own movements, and with their constrained space that wasn’t nearly adequate. The cotton of Lancelot’s shirt had turned translucent with all the sweat that had soaked into it and plastered to him, pointing up how his nipples had hardened. Arthur addressed that matter at some length with his tongue—wrung out an entirely new whimper when he added teeth—and teased the jumping muscles of Lancelot’s side. Found out exactly what kind of handful their arses made through heavy slacks and rumpled skirt. And finally, when Guinevere began to slow from exhaustion, moved his hand behind her to deal with the prick he’d left unattended. 

It was smearing all over the back of her shirt and it took a few moments for Arthur to fight away the folds and get a decent fistful of Lancelot’s cock. “On second thought, I suppose I should leave the clothes on you. Ruins the effect otherwise.”

And his fingers clawed a scream out of Guinevere, and they squeezed Lancelot into whipping himself so his head cracked with an audible thump against the wall.

“The effect was what you were going for, I believe?” Arthur took his time removing his hands. He thought about wiping them clean before he untied Lancelot, but a certain look in the other man’s eyes convinced him otherwise.

Just as well, for as soon as the tie was out of his mouth, Lancelot was bringing his hands around front without even waiting for Arthur to undo that knot. He had Arthur’s middle finger sucked between his lips in a heartbeat and his tongue working beneath the nail, over the cuticle, into every damned wrinkle like his life depended on it.

Guinevere was slightly more languid, preferring to bite Arthur’s neck where either he’d have to risk Kitty’s smiling inquiries tomorrow or work from home. “I’d say…more like we were investigating a cause, but the effect of it is certainly desirable. I wonder if I can pinch some of my cousins’ uniforms next time I have to visit the brats.”

Lancelot spat out Arthur’s finger, took a lick at the come smeared over Arthur’s other hand, and then made a mock-pitiful face. “I had fond memories of this tie,” he said, dangling the wrenched, wet ends before Arthur’s face. He held the pose for a moment, then grinned and nipped savagely at Arthur’s lip. “But I guess it’s an honorable way for a tie to die. Professor.”

“My sympathies to your old ones,” Arthur muttered. “You’ve no respect for the title at all, do you?”

“Respect hardly gets me flipped over and fucked into next semester, does it?” Arched eyebrow, liquid chocolate voice that obscenely rounded the vowels and drew out every ‘s.’ As he licked the rest of Arthur’s hands clean, Lancelot neither moved his gaze from Arthur nor blinked. “By the way, if one of those googly-eyes from your lectures ever—”

Arthur licked gently at the darkened corner of Lancelot’s mouth where the pressure of the tie had bruised. “There’s a reason I hold my office hours in the library. And what makes you so sure that you’re going to be ‘flipped over and fucked into next semester’?”

“Well, we’re sticky, but all still dressed. That isn’t usually how we end things.” Guinevere was busily remedying that, starting with Arthur’s belt. “And we’re certainly too smug to have learned our lesson yet, aren’t we?”

“I should brush up on my Machiavelli, clearly,” Arthur snorted.

Lancelot stretched and smiled again. His mouth was wet and red and bruised, his clothes were thoroughly disheveled—Arthur had seen pornographic engravings that looked less debauched—and yet he somehow managed to resemble an urchin. “Private tutoring session. Everyone benefits.”


	3. Bathroom Psychology

When she saw him, Guinevere allowed herself a soft, small smile. She eased the rest of the way into the room, stopping only to retrieve a paper that’d floated to the floor. If he’d been awake, Arthur never would have let his desk get into such a mess, but since he was slumped over his books, he didn’t really have a say. One arm was thrown out so his pen teetered between his fingers in dire danger of dropping over the edge and chipping its nice enamel. The other had settled so its fingers just brushed a framed photo of…Guinevere wrinkled her nose. Next time she dusted, she’d have to switch that one out for a less embarrassing shot. Trust Lancelot to be not only fooling around with the new wire-camera when the milk foamer on the office coffee machine decided to spit on her, but to email the results to Arthur.

She reached out for Arthur’s shoulder to lean him back in the seat—

\--two seconds later, Guinevere was torn between staring at the letter-opener that was a hair from piercing her eyeball and at Arthur’s stricken face. Another moment after, her wrist was released and he was frantically patting her down. “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear—”

“I know. I usually make a point to give warning, but I forgot. Sorry.” Well, she must be flustered if she was apologizing almost as soon after. Or perhaps it was the fact that Christ, she’d been five seconds away from having an eye popped out.

Arthur was cupping her face, his thumbs frozen on her cheekbones. His eyes flicked back and forth, making her uneasy enough to start fussing with her hair, and then he dropped his hands. Sudden, as if he’d taken a chill. “I am sorry,” he said, so quietly she almost missed it.

“I know. And you’re forgiven already,” she told him, grabbing his head. Her fear went on the backburner. If he started in on the guilt, she was going to shake him till it fell right out of his brain. “I know who you are.”

After a moment, he looked at her again. “Do you,” he murmured, touching her brow.

She forgot about that in the next moment, but only temporarily.

* * *

“Smoking? The apocalypse hit and everyone’s too scared to tell me?”

Guin didn’t answer with anything except a glare. That intensified when Lancelot toed over the ash-filled soap-dish, but she didn’t try to kick him, so she must have really wanted the company. Though even if she had kicked him, he still would have sat down. “I thought you quit for Arthur’s sake. Doesn’t like it in his office, and you love ambushing him there.”

She tapped off the ash in the toilet-bowl and took another drag. Didn’t blow it in his face, though she was certainly thinking about it. “I did. Mostly. But I needed one. What, going to tell on me?”

“Pretty pathetic, even for you.” He thought about poking her some more, but something in Guin’s face said hold off and let her tell it. Maybe it was the way she was looking at the bottles on the counter, like she was analyzing their line-up for psychological insight. Like it was a crime scene instead of evidence of Arthur’s neurotic orderliness.

The minutes dragged on. Even with the superb air-conditioning, the summer heat still managed to creep in and melt Lancelot’s hair-gel so it trickled stickily down the back of his neck. He got a hand back and scratched at it, then made a face at the gunk that ended up under his nails. The toilet-paper roll would be on Guin’s other side…he gave her a second, then reached across for it.

“You could bloody ask, you know,” she snorted. She tore him off a piece and handed it over, then sucked on her smoke. “Deep cover.”

“What?” Lancelot dug too deep under one nail and hissed. He almost stuck it into his mouth before he remembered _hair gel_ and _horrid taste_ from a bad bout of experimentation near five years ago.

Guin gave him one of her patented you-idiot-me-learned-professional looks. “Deep cover. Arthur. It’s what he was trained to do, and I don’t think he ever really stopped. When he left, he just…”

“The man mumbles about Locke and Cicero in his sleep. If that’s part of a bloody cover, then that’s—”

“I never said parts of it couldn’t be real, you jackass. Listen to all of it first before you go criticizing.” She elbowed herself off the wall long enough to toss her cig in the toilet, follow it with the ashes, and then flush it. “It’s like hibernation, when you’re successful. You shut down bits of yourself. Put them in the deep freezer. Remember how jumpy he was when we first met him? I couldn’t believe he’d used to be a British operative.”

As reluctant as Lancelot was to admit it, Guin did know her stuff when it came to mind-games. And Arthur had come a long way from the skittish professor they’d encountered four months ago. “All right, I’ll give you that. So…”

“So he’s getting comfortable, and letting bits of it out for longer. He doesn’t flinch so much at doing certain things now. If this keeps going, we might get to see the whole of the man who’s got MI6 scared shitless. The reason why Arthur keeps his distance from Pellew.” A last trickle of smoke curled from the corner of Guin’s lip, slow and thoughtful. She ran a hand through her hair, rubbed at her temple.

Worried, was she? To be honest, Lancelot had moments where he wondered whether it’d be safer to stop prodding Arthur so much, considering what might be in the man. But it wasn’t in his nature to leave things alone for long. And it wasn’t in Guin’s, either. “Been doing a bit of research on the side, have you? I thought that side of him you liked.”

“I do like it, but I’m not some brainless danger-junkie. The research…it’s helpful to him too to know who’s still got accessible files on him, so stop staring at me like that. At least I’m quiet about it. If you stopped badgering him every time you ran across something interesting in one of the lockboxes and just did a--” she stopped and snorted to herself. Her hand slipped from her hair to gently knuckle his hip. “Never mind. I’d have better luck changing the time of the tide than you.”

They sat shoulder-to-shoulder for a while, just watching her cigarette smoke spread out and dissolve into nothing. Maybe it was a full moon, and so they were being lunatics by not squabbling. But at any rate, Lancelot didn’t feel like snapping back.

Well. Not much.

“Like that movie about chasing tornadoes, isn’t it? Got to see what’s going on in the middle, even if it’s a total disaster,” he snickered. “Always said you’d be the one that stayed with the bomb, if only because you couldn’t bear to lose a try at figuring out its insides.”

“Don’t mix your damned metaphors.” She elbowed his head hard enough to bounce it off the wall. “And you?”

Lancelot raised a brow at her. “Can’t let you get one-up on me, can I? Pass me a smoke.”

She looked at him.

“Just the one, damn it. And stop looking at me like you’re my mother. There’s a set of stained sheets in the wash that says otherwise, unless you like Oedi—ow!”

Well, that was more like it.


	4. Open Season

“Guin,” Lancelot gritted out. “I know it’s against every rule in the handbook, but I’m going to kill our boss.”

She concentrated on not snapping the stem of her wine-glass. “And it’s against every rule of nature, but I’m going to have to agree with you.”

Pellew’s house party. The invitation had been to all three of them, so she and Lancelot had tag-teamed Arthur until he’d agreed to get his head out of his books and go. It should have been good for him—a little cerebral company since Pellew turned out to have an interest in the Enlightenment philosophers, a little relaxation with them in Pellew’s marvelously Victorian bathrooms. But instead of being staid old stuff-bags like expected, the rest of the guests had turned out to be relatively young, hungry-eyed bastards and cunts. The moment Arthur had walked in had reminded Guinevere of a Discovery vid of a shark feeding frenzy she’d seen once. Speaking of…“Oh, bugger. Where’d he go?”

“In search of the universal panacea, but no such luck,” A harried-looking Arthur slipped from behind them. He forgot to ask a yelping Lancelot for permission before he grabbed the other man’s drink and downed it like a tequila shot. “What in God’s name is wrong with these people? They’re all trying to get into my trousers! And I’m not even remotely trying to flirt!”

Lancelot blinked very slowly. He opened his mouth, closed it, and was opening it again when Arthur suddenly paled and shoved back into the shadows. Guinevere rolled her eyes and shut Lancelot’s jaw while she glared at that bottle-blonde who’d been moving Arthur’s way.

Competition always brought Lancelot back to life. “You know, sometimes I don’t know what I want to do more: drop down and suck him off, or hit him with a frying pan.”

Someone was going to die, if only because that worked better than aspirin for the kind of migraine that was creeping up on Guinevere. “In case you haven’t noticed, there are more important matters to consider. Such as the roomful of people that are trying to poach on _my_ \-- _our_ \--”

“Fuckbunny?” Lancelot ducked his head and attempted to look cute. He should’ve figured out by now that Guinevere was immune to that. “Ow!”

“I knew Pellew was going to get us back for that mess you made of the Townsend case. Now shut up and help.” Guinevere ignored his whinings about how if she’d done this and that…he stopped after a token protest. Good. They had a professor to catch.


	5. Post-It: Daylilies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: Post-It saying _Lancelot—drop off the suits for dry-cleaning_

Guinevere stopped whisking the vinaigrette for dinner’s salad and cocked her head. She heard the front door open and Lancelot’s cocky whistle bound up the stairs. Creaking hinges signaled the door’s backswing; she was putting down the whisk to go relock it when someone stopped it.

A moment later, Arthur wandered into the kitchen and set his briefcase on the counter. His tie was hanging unknotted and grass stains on his knees and shirtsleeves accentuated the dazed look in his eyes. He folded his jacket over a chair—more grass stains on it, Guinevere was amused to see—and began to pick crumpled petals from his hair. “Lancelot…ah…met me while I was cutting through the dean’s garden. We had a spirited discussion.”

“And then you had sex in the flowers,” Guinevere noted.

“Ah, well, yes—” Arthur abruptly threw up his hands at it all and went straight for tea. “How does he do that? I don’t even remember how…”

She shrugged and nudged the sugar bowl over to him. Reaching to retrieve it would put him perfectly in line with the glistening table-top, she calculated. “He does have an annoyingly effective pout. Drink up. I’m almost done with the dressing.”


	6. Post-It: Morning Scramble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt (from LJ user d_violetta): Post-It saying _Arthur—sorry about the bruises. I’ll make it up to you later. Lancelot._

Tristan poked around in the freezer until he found a clean icepack to hand to Arthur. He stayed poking around in it because there were some specialty ice cream flavors in there that he didn’t know could even be made. “So Lancelot’s briefcase is the king of the household?”

“Actually, Guinevere’s is even bigger, but she tends to be more careful about how she swings it around.” Arthur delicately applied the pack to his forehead, wincing. “That didn’t come out correctly.”

“Nope.” Raspberry with cabernet sauvignon swirl and chocolate bits. The most complicated Arthur had ever gotten was rocky road, so that was probably Guinevere’s. “She tops both of you?”

There was a funny sound, like a cross between a choke and a kill-me-now plea. “I am not having this conversation with you. Don’t you have class?” Arthur said.

Tristan silently laughed at the stacked ice cream pints. “I think I’m learning just as much here.”


	7. Post-It: Excuses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt from 'fff': Post-It saying _Gawain, don’t believe Galahad. The squirrel didn’t mean it. Tristan._

“So this super-squirrel tackled you, knocked over the filing cabinet, and then somehow made this room smell like stale sex before messing up my morning’s work.” Gawain felt a migraine coming on, and damned if he wasn’t out of aspirin. It was going to be one of those days.

He noticed something pink sticking out from beneath a pile of papers and used a pencil to fish it out. Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Um.” Galahad was making a move for the door. “At least the female population of Avalon isn’t trying to kill me anymore?”

“Just…” Oh. Thus arrived the headache. “Just get me water and aspirin, and I might let you live.”


	8. It’s the Thought That Counts

“It’s right—” Tristan stopped, food cover dangling limply from his hand.

It wasn’t often that Gawain got to see Tristan utterly dumbfounded. In fact, this time raised that number to a grand total of four in nearly twice as many months. So frankly, Gawain wasn’t sure what to do and simply stared at Tristan. Tristan stared at the squirrel happily eating its way through the cake.

“Chitter?”

Gawain jerked back to himself, then remembered a basic rule of dating he’d learned from watching Galahad’s screw-ups. “Hell, I don’t like chocolate anyway.”

“You ordered a triple chocolate fudge sundae two weeks ago,” Tristan absently said. He was still matching looks with the squirrel.

“Oh, right. Um…well, the cake would’ve been messier than that was.” Gawain tapped Tristan on the arm, then pressed up to nuzzle the back of his neck. “Actually, that sounds really good. Let’s go out for ice cream.”

“You mean buy it and stay in,” Tristan corrected. But a slow smile was spreading over his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for LJ user trin_chardin.


	9. Day-Planner Dependency

_8 A. M.: Review CVs_

Arthur looked longingly at the neat stack of papers waiting for him. “I thought you and Guinevere were supposed to be testing some new system today.”

*Oh, yeah, but that’s not for another hour. Probably longer, since she’s got to meet with Isolde to exchange some info. I’ll be lucky if they pry the girls’ claws out of each other before lunch.*

Five résumés, two of which corresponded to interviews later in the day. Starting a new subdepartment was hard work, but Arthur had been looking forward to it for nearly a year. Avalon’s philosophy department was incredibly antiquated and unfortunately burdened with a few hopelessly nostalgic alumni possessed of large bankrolls, so he’d had to wait until after he’d received tenure to even contemplate revamping it. “Ah.”

*Arthur? Are you lusting after your paperwork again?* Lancelot suspiciously asked.

“Of course not.” Damn. Lying wasn’t one of Arthur’s favorite methods, but usually he could execute it adequately enough. Right now, however, he sounded about as convincing as a cat pretending to be a hormonally-challenged mouse. “How’s D. C.?”

There was a creaking sound, which probably was Lancelot flopping about in his chair. *Hot. Steamy. The sweat sticks my clothes to me and itches so I’d just like to rip them off. And give whoever mandated ties as office-wear a good whipping.*

If Arthur was very, very careful about it, he might be able to ease the top folder over without Lancelot hearing the paper rustle. He pinched the file between forefinger and thumb, then delicately lifted it enough so it wouldn’t scrape against the file beneath it. “I thought you were inside most of the time.”

*Only when I have to be. God, the office here is so damned _dull_. You’d think D. C., capital of over-the-top ego-stroking and under-the-table assignations, would be able to provide a little liveliness, but no…it’s like the office motto is ‘We’re just like Switzerland—we don’t fuck anyone over, but then, we don’t fuck, period.’ I’m desperately bored.*

Success. The file was off the pile and in front of Arthur. He slid his nail beneath the top cover and silently flipped it open. Female name, thirtysomething…he immediately turned to the photo. No, fairly plain. Not that he cared much, but apparently everyone else did, from his lovers to Vanora. Even Kitty occasionally got a bit…pointed…about some of the skimpier-dressed grad students. If her credentials turned out to be the pick of the bunch, he’d feel guilty for not trying to hint to her beforehand about the social factor.

*…seen most of the attractions before as well—I used to be based in D. C. The Smithsonian’s not too bad for repeat visits, but otherwise it’s really all just a bunch of stone columns. Makes you wonder what the Founding Fathers were compensating for.*

“Considering they beat us under improbable conditions, I’d say rather little. Have you been to the Library of Congress yet? I keep meaning to visit there again, but so far I haven’t had the time to arrange for the right passes…” Good qualifications, some interesting papers to her credit, but her previous work experience was spotty. Any new faculty hired would be expected to teach, and since one philosophy class was a mandatory prerequisite for nearly any major on-campus, then a lecturer that couldn’t teach would soon become an issue. Arthur slid that file aside and reached for the next one.

Lancelot blew what sounded like a raspberry at the phone, startling Arthur into an amused snort. *How did I know you were going to ask that? Well, as a matter of fact, I’m _in_ the Library of Congress right now. Private reading room. They have very nice chairs here, and shelves and shelves of neatly bound books just waiting for someone to take them down and handle them…*

The next file was some kind of prodigy—political science/philosophy double major, both in undergraduate and graduate work, and yet Mr. Wellard only appeared to be Tristan’s age. British father, American mother…the longer Arthur stared at the photo, the more aware he became of a strange warning tingle on the back of his neck. He set that file aside as well, but to the side of the first. “Lancelot. I am not having phone-sex with you. Aside from the fact that you’re in the _Library_ of _Congress_ , one of the greatest libraries now existing—”

*You have to get to work vetting new lecturers, I know, I know. Guin made it very clear I wasn’t supposed to bother you.* A contemptuous noise expressed Lancelot’s feelings on that. *Thought it’d be worth a try, anyway.*

He sounded so crushed. Of course it was an act since Lancelot had probably never felt pitiful since he was old enough to strut, but nevertheless, it was a very effective act. Arthur willed himself to resist.

Oh, why not. “I do miss you, if that’s any consolation. Mornings aren’t really the same without someone to bend over the kitchen counter. See you tomorrow.”

Later Arthur was going to feel guilty about that, and much later when Lancelot flew home, he was undoubtedly going to extract payback, but at the moment Arthur was rather enjoying the sound of Lancelot squeaking. Shame that he had to hang up.

Files three through five showed nothing out of the ordinary, so Arthur shoved those with file one and went back to the second. He still couldn’t put his finger on it, but something in that CV was nagging at him.

“Arthur?’ Vanora knocked, then popped in her head. She was nervously playing with a pencil and she tossed her head a few times for no apparent reason. “Kitty wanted me to let you know she can stop in any time before two, but after that she’s completely booked.”

“Oh…” He got out his planner and did a quick check—two interviews, a meeting apiece with Gawain and Galahad, lunch with Guinevere… “Not today, then. Ask her if I can drop in tomorrow, please. Oh, and if you see Gary, tell him I can’t take that Intro lecture in October. Thank you. Lovely hair, by the way.”

Her cheeks pinked and beamed at him. “Thank you, Arthur. I’ll get right on it.”

As soon as she’d closed the door, he let out a minute sigh of relief. Even though he’d gotten relatively good at reading signs of female insecurity, there were still so many possible explanations. Worry about a new hairstyle looked almost exactly like worry over a new pair of shoes, but confusing one with the other could be deadly...sometime when Guinevere was too tipsy to ask him why, he’d have to quiz her on that.

Arthur locked the door, then dug his briefcase out from under his desk. From that he produced something that looked—and actually was—a spare powerpack, but when a certain bit of it was manipulated, it doubled as a security lock on an Internet connection. He unplugged his Internet cable, then replugged it into the lock. That went under the desk, and then he attached another cable from the other end of the lock to his computer. Preparations done, he sat down to do some background research on Mr. Wellard.

* * *

_9:30 A. M.: Gawain, abstract approval, project outline_

“Uh, Arthur? If this is a bad time, I can come back later…” Gawain looked a bit startled.

Then again, he probably wasn’t used to seeing his advisor jump and then double over in pain. Arthur suppressed his grimace and waved the other man in while rubbing at his knee; perhaps it was time to get himself a new, higher desk. “No, sorry. I was just caught up in a bit of work. Have a seat.”

Which Gawain did, looking rather like he was prepared to take his firing squad like a man. Admittedly, they usually held their meetings under less formal circumstances, but this shouldn’t have been too awful.

“All right, this is just a short meeting to get the paperwork out of the way…” When Arthur found it, that was. His desk was considerably messier than he normally allowed it to be and so it took him a good minute and a half to locate the right file. He left that flipped open over his keyboard and did a bit of tidying-up. “I’ve read through the draft you sent me and I don’t see any problems with it, so I think you can go on and send in your abstract. Don’t forget to hand in a copy to Vanora as well.”

“Okay. Thanks…um…you need to…” Gawain leaned over and got his abstract, then stapled it to the submission form before handing it back to Arthur.

Oh, right. After locating a pen, Arthur dashed off a signature and returned the sheets to Gawain. “And how goes the funding?”

The face Gawain made wouldn’t have looked out of place on a grumpy dog. “Okay, I guess. Vanora says I’m ahead of any other grad student you’ve had, but it’s just…really complicated. I have to make sure it won’t cut into my financial aid and a couple other things, but it should be mostly worked out by our meeting next week.”

“Something I meant to mention but forgot to last time—once the applied philosophy unit gets its feet down, you might be able to reclassify your thesis under that. We’re still working out the details, but that way, you might be eligible for funding through the political science department.” Which reminded Arthur that he was slightly behind on coordinating with that department. Its chair tended to hop down to D. C. for the summer Congressional sessions, which made that difficult.

For a moment, Arthur thought about having a word with Lancelot, but he resolutely quashed that idea. Aside from keeping professional and personal lives apart, it really wasn’t fair to sic Lancelot on anyone. Not to mention Arthur could imagine all too well what kind of payment Lancelot would extract for such a favor…

“I’ll remember to check on that,” Gawain was saying. He bounced his knees, caught himself, and then started jiggling his foot so the orchids on Arthur’s desk looked as if they were dancing. Something told Arthur that whatever was bothering the man probably wasn’t school-related.

A quick check at the door showed that it was shut, but since Arthur didn’t remember locking it, it probably wasn’t. No matter. He’d gotten fed up and installed insulation strips around the door several weeks back, so even if it was only half-shut, most of the noise was blocked out. Or held in.

Sometimes he wished everything didn’t remind him of some sexual exploit into which Lancelot or Guinevere had dragged him. It made it considerably more difficult to keep a straight face. “Is there anything else you wanted to discuss with me?”

“Um…oh. Yeah. I know I said I was going to return the _Collected Edicts_ yesterday, but I got wrapped up at the g-brary yesterday and I haven’t even gotten around to opening it.” Embarrassed, Gawain rubbed at the side of his face and watched his feet. “So can I—”

“Of course. I’ll actually be working from home most of next week, so you can send it along with Tristan.” Arthur pretended that Gawain didn’t blush deeply beneath his suntan, and Gawain pretended that Arthur wasn’t rather amused by the whole situation. Now that the obligatory evaluation dinner had been done with, Arthur found himself able to take the long view of Tristan’s…interesting choice. “Is there some—”

Gawain attempted to look casual, but instead ended up looking even more embarrassed. “That reminds me, actually. Tristan…um…said to tell you he thought he saw an old London friend. But he has mice to deal with, so he’ll call you after dinner if you don’t think you’ve got to call him first.”

It was obvious that Gawain didn’t know what that message sent, and hopefully it was equally obvious that Arthur was sorry for not offering an explanation. Tristan had enough good sense to know what to tell and what not to, so Arthur wasn’t going to override the other man’s judgment. At least not with the little information he had on hand. “Thank you, Gawain.”

They sat there for a second before Gawain nodded and bounded from his seat. “Right. Thanks, Arthur. Same time next week?”

“Unless a disaster strikes.” Arthur saw the other man to the door. Then he shut and locked it, and returned to his chair for a little more frantic searching. If he didn’t find anything by lunch, he’d have to call Tristan.

Guinevere might have had files—for an Interpol field agent, she seemed to have a suspiciously high security clearance—but Arthur preferred not to ask her until he had to. It wasn’t hiding information from her so much as making sure that he didn’t touch off an inquiry when one wasn’t needed. For all he knew, it might be exactly as Tristan had so delicately phrased it—old friends in town.

Nevertheless, Arthur made a note to pick up extra double-chocolate-raspberry ice cream for Guinevere. And some more of Lancelot’s favorite coffee grind.

Kitty had a very witty joke about easing guilt through shopping, and Arthur was determinedly _not_ remembering it right now.

* * *

_10:30 A. M.: Interview job applicant, write up recommendation for Merlin_

Technically Guinevere was supposed to be reviewing forensic reports back at the office, but she didn’t need two bloody hours to digest a couple of DNA analyses. Anyway, if Pellew really wanted this new long-distance communication system road-tested, then she damn well was going to do that. The fact that she was skipping out early and spying on Arthur interviewing a potential _female_ colleague had nothing to do with it.

Male rivals weren’t much of an issue, since firstly, she suspected that Arthur was mostly Lancelot-indulgent instead of really bisexual, and secondly, Lancelot would slaughter any male competition. He tended to leave the female competition alive because he thought it was funny to watch Guinevere perform deft character-assassination in a few choice sentences over a cocktail.

She supposed she _was_ rather good at it.

*Guin? Guin, are you even listening to me? You’re not driving anymore, are you?*

“No. And quieter, would you?” Vanora was eying Guinevere a bit oddly, and Arthur had done something to his door so conversation was completely drowned out instead of being only muffled. Guinevere bit back a curse, tossed off a compliment about Vanora’s hair and wandered into a back-hallway.

Luckily, the passages that ran from the offices to the lecture-halls and the cramped discussion rooms didn’t have ceiling panels to cover up the plumbing. Unsightly, but useful if one was looking for a new listening post. Guinevere tracked a likely one into a turn that looked relatively unused. She scouted out a box to use as a stool, then got up so her head was beside the pipe. The occasional word could be made out, but the position was awkward since she only could use one hand for balance; her other hand was busy holding the PDA-like gadget that was currently showing a bad slide-show of a room through which somebody’s teenager had rampaged. “Damn it, can’t you take better shots? What am I supposed to be looking at, your fingers or the crime scene?”

*I’d like to see you try working with this bloody camera. Can get cell phones with cameras built in, but try and get one for Interpol work and it comes out like something a poof with a blinking-light fetish would design…* The next couple of shots were somewhat better aimed, but the resolution was bad and the colors were too dark.

Well, the tone of the snapshots couldn’t be blamed on Lancelot, but the resolution probably was his fault. With Guinevere and Arthur both in another city, he had no way to work off his caffeine, so he was probably as jerky as a junkie coming down. “As limited as your abilities are, I’m sure they extend past bitching and getting buggered senseless. So show it.”

“…curiously short stints at other col…” Some rodent rattled through the pipe and cut off the rest of Arthur’s words.

“…wanted a flexible program…” Ah. The interviewee. She sounded prim and annoying. Good.

Lancelot snarled. *Excuse me? I’ve racked up twice your number of field assignments. I’d…Guin? Why do I have this hunch that you’re not obeying your usual work ethic?*

He’d accomplished that because he had a gift for opening one line of investigation that blundered into a second or even a third one, not because it was premeditated. And because he had a prick between his legs and he hadn’t had gender-war issues with _his_ supervisor before transferring to Pellew. *I have more high-profile cases wrapped up. And Arthur’s interviewing one of those candidates. The thirtyish female one.*

Speaking of, she sounded defensive. “…misinterpreted my comments…was prone to hysterics…”

“…but the dean concurred…interviewed the student and found nothing…”

*Oh. Isn’t he doing two today? Who’s the second one—hey, Guin. Stop eavesdropping a moment. I think I found something.* There was a lag of nearly two minutes before the image of what Lancelot was peering at finally loaded onto Guinevere’s screen. First criticism she had was how lousy the wireless reception was—it hardly worked here, and she knew that the whole building was wired for it. *See—damn it. The color’s showing up wrong on the graphics. It should look more like—*

“…like the thieves were using acid to burn through part of the lock mechanism, and it stained the carpet? That would narrow down the suspects a bit,” Guinevere thoughtfully said. She abruptly noticed that the noises from the pipe had stopped so she pressed her ear against it. It must have been a temporary lull, for the conversation started up again, though it was a bit quieter.

And now her hair was dusty. She disgustedly batted it clean and squinted at her handheld screen. “Anything else? I’m about to go off with Arthur.”

*No, that’s it till the lab boys get back to me. And you don’t have to sound so damned smug, you selfish cunt. I know you get Arthur to yourself for lunch.*

“You’re one to be lecturing me about—gah!” Guinevere flattened herself back against the wall and nearly slipped off her makeshift stepstool.

Arthur, on the other hand, merely looked exasperated. He had her steadied and on the floor before she could even catch her breath, and the gesture was done so smoothly that she barely felt more than the warmth of his hands on her waist. Then he nodded at her earphone and the cell clipped to her belt. “Lancelot?”

*Tell him the Library of Congress sparked a bit of inspiration,* the smarmy bastard grinned.

“I don’t even want to know. Some things shouldn’t be made pervy, you…you pervert.” She ended the call and turned off her PDA before things could get any worse. Damn her pre-lunch sluggishness; she would have to make up for it with a truly scathing welcome-back greeting. “Arthur! Hi! How on earth did you guess I was here?”

He was peering at the pipes above her head with interest, and even flicked his fingers against one. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. I’ll have to do…oh, and Vanora emailed me that you had come in, but had wandered down this way. I had a wild guess as to what you were up to. Imagine my surprise when I was actually right.”

Well, when things went pear-shaped, the best way to meet it was generally with chin high and confidence firmly in place. Guinevere slipped her arm through his and pulled him back towards the main area. “I finished my deskwork early, so I thought I’d give this new system a real workout. How are the interviews going?”

“I’ve only done the one.” Arthur carefully didn’t say _as you should know_ , but there was a small touch of it at the corners of his mouth. As they rounded the corner, he ducked in to nuzzle her hair. “Where are we going for lunch?”

She fought down both her blush and her goofy smile, which would hopefully die for good before her dignity went the way of Lancelot’s. “It’s a surprise. Just look out the window and watch the scenery.”

* * *

_11:00 A. M.: Lunch with Guinevere. Avoid compromising situations._

Funny how he had a photographic memory when it came to nuances of high-tech security systems, but that he could not, however he tried, remember how he got into these situations. The best philosophy probably was to just lie back and enjoy the ride, except he really did want to know how this sort of thing started.

Well, that and he was actually closer to kneeling than lying down. His back was just beginning to develop a crick and Guinevere seemed determined to whack him with her knees when she wasn’t moaning. Arthur pushed his tongue farther into her folds while trying to keep her thighs apart.

He succeeded with the first, rubbing the flat of it over a small hump of flesh that was directly connected to Guinevere’s vocal cords, but the second goal eluded him. One knock against his left shoulder nearly sent him off the car seat; he had to shove down his leg, dig in his heel and hope the brace would hold. For that matter, he hoped no one wandered into this parking garage just now. Charges of public indecency were, after all was said and done, probably more embarrassing to explain away than something like manslaughter.

Guinevere was clenching around him, and he accordingly prepared himself only to be blindsided by a knee ramming into his armpit. It was…not the most pain he’d ever felt, but it was still quite bad. Reflex dug his fingers into her thighs, which had the effect of jerking them up, changing the angle at which his tongue was wriggling against her clit and turning Guinevere into a spasm with pointy heels, long nails and a tendency to direct both of them into him.

“My God,” she gasped, collapsing backward.

She lay limp and still while Arthur went about the complicated process of disentangling himself from her skirt and dealing with her hose and pants while desperately trying not to hiss in pain. He finally backed out and knelt on the seat, rubbing under his arm. “No one’s come out yet. Either this place has superior soundproofing or it’s terribly trendy.”

“Or this place is more famous for its dinners. Usually half-full for lunch, but I like it best then.” Guinevere’s smile stretched as slowly and smugly as her body did, arching up from buttocks to shoulders in a fluid motion that drew eyes to how her breasts plumped beneath her breast. She waved a vague finger at him. “You’ve got a bit of something on you. No…there.”

Arthur wiped off the offending smear, then cast about for a tissue.

“Oh, here. Give us that.” When Guinevere was particularly relaxed, she occasionally broke into regional slang. She also tended to tease Arthur more effectively, since she relied less on studied effects and more on spontaneous gestures such as sucking his finger clean with an unconsciousness that…

He shifted on the seat. “I think we’re going to be late.”

“Deservedly so,” she purred, sliding up beside him. Her hand smoothed flat his shirt up to his loosened tie before moving pointedly past his belt. “Surprise, surprise. You use your tongue better, for all that Lancelot’s the talker.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were finally ensconced in the restaurant. Fortunately Arthur had decided to wear a dark suit, so the rumples and any stains he might have acquired were virtually undetectable. Guinevere had needed a few minutes in the restroom to deal with her hair, which now drifted in infectious curls over her shoulders. The table was ridiculously small, so Arthur was having slightly more of a problem with resisting the urge to wrap his fingers in it than he usually did. But he was _not_ going to sit on his own damned hands like an errant schoolboy. Schoolboy. Damn it.

“You’re trying not to remember something kinky.” Her eyes sparkled at him over the top of her menu. “Arthur, honestly. How’d you ever deal with this while on the payroll? I can’t imagine that blushing, as cute as it makes you look, could’ve done much for you back then.”

“No, but I had considerably less to blush about back then,” he replied. A glance through the menu was enough to make up his mind for him; he wasn’t in the mood for complex fare and so chose the first entrée that had less than eight ingredients in its description. His life was currently giving him enough puzzles without him having to confuse his tongue as well. “No matter what happened, someone somewhere was taking it dead seriously.”

Either the place had managed to budget a quality of service that their prices miraculously didn’t reflect, or Guinevere had been here often enough for the staff to be terrified of her. Whatever the reason, Arthur had hardly done more than point and voice the first syllable before the waitress was nodding and the menu was being whisked from his hands.

It was probably the second, given how cursory Guinevere was about waiting till their server was out of earsight. Normally she was as careful about that as Arthur was. “I can see how that’d put a damper on your sense of humor,” she quietly said. Her chin rested on her one hand while she pensively watched the other toy with her fork. “I’ve had to deal with the occasional undercover agent. Usually they only do a stint of a few months, and then switch covers. Or they limit themselves to one. You’re very good, you know.”

“Occasionally I can bring myself to acknowledge that ‘good’ could be a fitting word for it.” Arthur scrutinized her for clues as to where this sudden bout of melancholy had originated. He didn’t think it had anything to do with the morning’s possible alarm since neither he nor Tristan had gotten a heads-up till today, and as far as he knew, none of Guinevere and Lancelot’s current cases were remotely connected to him. “How did the test run go?”

She didn’t seem to understand him at first, so he elaborated. Awkwardly, and partially by hand-gesture, since right then the waitress decided to bring them their salads and his tea. “The new long-distance investigation system you were trying out.”

“Oh, the remote-control pain in the arse. It did what it was supposed to and not an inch more—right now, there’s not much reason to switch from cell phones and emailing photos to it. And if we did implement it, I’m sure that Lancelot would find some way to pornify it.” Guinevere poked at her salad and a cherry tomato squelched out from beneath her fork. It went shooting across the table, where Arthur automatically batted it back with his fork, and ended up smacked out of the air by Guinevere. She stabbed it more thoroughly this time and successfully conveyed it to her mouth.

“Pornify? I’m fairly sure that’s not a genuine word…” Something was off in the dressing, so Arthur pushed aside the salad and drank some of his water instead. It didn’t really help.

She wrinkled her nose at him, looking much like the tomboy he suspected she’d been. “Don’t start with me, professor. I’ve had enough of playing by the rules for the moment.”

That raised an eyebrow on Arthur’s part. “I thought that was Lancelot’s line.”

“It is.” Her mutter sounded like it wanted to spit but was too well-bred to. She irritably tucked her hair behind one ear, then tossed her head when half the thick locks immediately drifted loose again.

Arthur tried to exude as undemanding an air as possible and waited. He sipped at his tea and found it impressively well-brewed, which partially made up for the metallic edge to the salad dressing.

“Sometimes I just watch those bimbos and wonder whether ignorance really is bliss,” Guinevere finally said. She spoke to the flower vase instead of directly to Arthur’s face, as if trying to make it a throw-away line. “Not that I’m complaining about Pellew, mind: he’s fair and tough and about as rare as you are. But sadly, not all the people I work with are bloody miracles of humanity. Isolde and her perky-perky nipples—” illustrated with bobbing fingertips “—and damn it, I just want to be able to dress like a damned good-looking woman _and_ get cooperation without having to talk in a breathy Marilyn Monroe voice.”

Which Guinevere also illustrated, and as serious as she clearly was, it was still difficult for Arthur not to laugh at her devastating imitation.

Then he remembered his moment reviewing the first CV and he abruptly felt rather ashamed of himself. After all, he was hardly qualified to cast stones. “When this sort of issue comes up at work, one of the first anecdotes to be brought up is the story of Gawain the knight and the fairy. I—”

“—I don’t want sovereignty over men, thank you. The ancient Romans tossed out divine right to rule in favor of first among equals, and that holds more interest for me,” Guinevere snapped. She eyed him as if she expected him to argue her against the wall.

“Because it’s more meaningful when you work for it, and appearances are a gift of nature, not the result of hard effort.” Arthur paused to think over that sentence. “Well, once one discounts plastic surgery and the like. Modern science has this nasty habit of recalibrating all social scales without leaving adequate time for a philosophical scaffold to arise.”

Guinevere picked up her water glass and gave it a small smile. “You’ve really got this applied philosophy idea on the brain, don’t you?”

He shrugged and let his words speak for themselves. “I suppose I’ve been thinking about it for several years.” After enough time for them to share a laugh, he went on. “It used to be something you did on the streets, something that jumped straight out of daily events. Now it’s relegated to the ivory tower—we quote myths and fables that no longer fit a situation and think our work is done. But really, it’s never left the streets. We just call it political science, and economic restructuring, and ethics of medicine or of the Internet or some such, but it’s really all the same thing at the bottom.”

“Arthur…” Shaking her head, Guinevere leaned back in her seat. She started to laugh at something, but too softly for it to be mocking. Then she stopped herself and simply looked at him in a way that made him wish the table were even smaller, or not there at all, for that matter. “I wonder what it is that I did.”

“In order to…” he said.

But she refused to finish, and by the time the server had brought them the rest of their food, their conversation had strayed too far for it to plausibly swing back. Arthur filed the moment away and let their talk dance wherever it wanted to. Guinevere, he suspected, would not take quite as much pushing as she seemed capable of taking when it came to certain subjects. Not without breaking, and the last thing he wanted to do was that for the same reason that information tricked out of someone was more reliable than information gained by torture.

“Oh,” she said, looking over the bill. “How’s your day been? Anything out of the ordinary with the applicants you’ve been reviewing?”

“Not so far,” Arthur answered. He hesitated, then added a bit more than he would have a few months ago. “I’ve got reservations about one.”

Guinevere hummed and nodded. Then she stopped to look at him. “Oh. I see.”

“It’s probably not,” he said.

“They’d have to be idiots,” she said. And they comfortably left it at that.

* * *

_1:30 P. M.: Galahad, abstract approval, project outline. Patience._

“Look, I’m not trying to be difficult, but I fu—I can’t work that closely with her. Mariette and I have…irreconcilable differences.” Galahad’s attempt at convincing earnestness reminded Arthur a good deal of Lancelot, though Galahad was somewhat less skilled at hiding his desperation.

Actually, Arthur wasn’t even sure if Galahad was trying to hide it. He certainly wouldn’t have looked out of place in an antiwar movie, struggling against the brutality of…Arthur was losing his train of thought. He shook himself and held onto his patience. “Galahad, your proposal is an excellent one, but it’s clearly to be a joint project of the Philosophy and the Economics departments, and unless you can submit the name of another Economics professor within the week, your other advisor will be Professor Cobham. Now—”

“I don’t have any problem with her. Really. I respect her a lot. It’s just her grad student I can’t stand.” The other man also lied more poorly than Lancelot did. He did respect Kitty in his own way, but from what Arthur had seen, he also found her intimidating in a way he’d never had to handle before.

Come to think of it, that probably went for Mariette as well. It certainly was true on her side towards Galahad…sometimes Arthur wished her parents hadn’t been so old-fashioned. Their attitude had left her woefully under-experienced when it came to negotiating particular interpersonal interactions.

Galahad was wincing as soon as he’d finished talking. “Shit—sorry. Um. So what we discuss isn’t going to leave this room, right? Because Mariette wouldn’t ever let me hear—”

“Anything you say here is confidential if you’d like it to be so. You have my word,” Arthur reassured him. “But Galahad, I’m afraid that there’s no way you can have Kitty as a joint advisor and _not_ have to work with Mariette to some extent. I doubt you’ll have to spend more time than you normally do, but you will have to spend some time.”

“Seriously?” For some reason, Galahad looked overjoyed. “Oh, man, that’s a relief. The way Professor Cobham was talking, she wanted me to mesh my stuff with Mariette’s. Something about us being a natural fit.”

Which was true—their theses would dovetail neatly into each other—but Arthur had a sudden hunch that that hadn’t been what Kitty had had in mind, incorrigible romantic that she was.

“…and she was muttering about this production of _Much Ado About Nothing_ that she wanted to put on and she kept _looking_ at me or Mariette with this evil glint in her eye…”

No, definitely not. Arthur flipped open his planner and scribbled a note to have a word about that with Kitty. It was one thing to tease him about how his desk-orchids must be receiving extra care to look so vigorous, but it was entirely another to start trying to drag his poor grad students into her schemes—Arthur had an image pop into his head. Then he had a sharp mental wince.

“Oh, Jesus.” Galahad dropped his head into his hands, pressing at his temples as if trying to press out a thought. Then he looked up. “Did you see Gawain and Tristan in _Romeo and Juliet_ , too? Oh, God, my brain…”

“It was _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , but the general effect was the same, I think,” Arthur said, still wincing. He loved Tristan, and he wished him and Gawain every happiness, but some things didn’t bear thinking on. Especially how the animals probably would fit into it. “I’ll speak to Kitty. In the meanwhile…”

“Oh, aside from that, I’m good. Is that it for today?” In an instant, Galahad went from slumped in agony to bright-eyed and eager. His eyes flicked at the door.

After this long teaching, Arthur knew better than to take it personally. “I believe so.”

“Great. I’ve got to track down Gawain and ask him how to put a carburetor back together…” Galahad bounced for the door.

Arthur turned back to his desk and began to gather his papers for the last meeting of the day. But when the sound of the door shutting didn’t come five seconds later, he looked up.

The other man had paused by the door, one hand fidgeting with his bookbag. “Hey—um, thanks for not ragging me on being almost late with my abstract.”

“You were on time. Though in the future, I think I’d avoid waking up administrative secretaries after midnight. They have long memories and they control a surprising amount around here.” Once was allowable. Besides, Arthur had the feeling that Vanora, if not the Economic Department’s secretary, had already delivered a dressing-down that would’ve far surpassed anything he could say.

“Right. I’ll…do that.” A second attempt at leaving, which was also aborted. “Still, thanks. I appreciate it.”

The third try saw Galahad through the door as well as leaving Arthur to stare at his desk for a moment. Then he set his shoulders and nodded, and thought that yes, he had made something of himself as a teacher after all.

* * *

_2:00 P. M.: Interview job applicant. Write up recommendation for Merlin. Avoid causing undue fuss if things go awry._

Mr. Wellard sat down and Arthur had a final answer.

Occasionally Arthur wondered if covert intelligence left a physical stamp of some kind on its operatives, for it was never too difficult for him to spot another one, no matter how long they’d been out of it. Or perhaps he’d gained some sort of sixth sense during his years in that line of work. He rather hoped it was the second explanation, since the first one left him no hope.

He was a good teacher, he reminded himself. A good teacher, and a sufficiently good person to attract two wonderful people to him, even if he personally didn’t understand what they were seeing. And there always had to be hope.

“Professor Pendragon.” Wellard was a grave, deliberate young man with the same delicate rose-and-cream complexion that one saw in the more lurid Victorian pornographic prints.

“Mr. Wellard.” Arthur closed the man’s file, which had been open before him, and calmly folded his hands over it. “I’m taking the liberty of disqualifying you from the position ahead of time so we can speak freely.”

Though Arthur wasn’t aware of doing anything to deserve it—perhaps he’d hardened his voice a touch, but nothing major—the other man flinched. He recovered soon enough, and nodded his agreement. “I’m to offer apologies on behalf of a mutual acquaintance for not contacting you through more suitable channels, and I add my own as well. But there were good reasons for doing so, and I hope you’ll understand. I’m only here to deliver a message.”

Which Arthur waited for with a serenity that certainly didn’t reach all the way down.

“Norrington’s retired. He and his successor merely ask that you return the favor he did you, as he’d like to spend it in some peace and quiet.” The words came clipped from Wellard’s lips as if he feared that if he did not cut them, they could be used to tear out his tongue.

Arthur let himself blink once. That certainly hadn’t been what he had been expecting, but it was a welcome surprise. “Of course. But I have to add that I will do that much and no further—he can’t expect to call on me. I play no games now.”

“I’ll relay the message,” said Wellard. It seemed that he’d expected just such an answer, and once it was received, he made quick work of taking his leave.

“Well, that was a brisk one,” Vanora said. She came in with a handful of papers that she began sorting into his various in-boxes. “Did you want anything else, or are you off to the airport?”

According to the plan, Lancelot was supposed to take a taxi home—Guinevere was working the evening, and Arthur had intended to track down some of the other professors. And he really should be squeezing in a call to Tristan to let him know there was no alarm after all.

Arthur looked at his desk once more, then sighed. He reached for his coat only to find Vanora handing it to him, a sly smile on her face.

“I’ve conspired with the other secretaries and we’ve got all your appointments lined up for you tomorrow, but they’re back-to-back, so you’d better enjoy yourself today.” She was nearly purring with self-satisfaction.

He tried to pull his straight face back on, but for some reason situations like this always made it slippery as butter. In the end, he had to settle for a slightly-choked “Thank you, Vanora” and a quick exit.

* * *

_4:30 P. M.: Sod the office, make the calls from the car, and get there fifteen minutes early. But at least try to keep the pouncing at bay till out of airport and off freeways._

The moment Lancelot saw Arthur, his head snapped up, his shoulders stopped slumping and a wide smile spread on his face. He even bounded up an inch, which almost had Arthur throwing up his arms. Thankfully, it was only Lancelot briefly going up on his toes to see past a pair of tall punked-out men and their even taller hair.

“Relax. This crowd definitely doesn’t deserve a free show.” He jostled into Arthur by way of greeting, then made a face when his little grope was deflected. “I thought I was catching my own ride home.”

“I had some free time come up.” Arthur swung in beside the other man. He found himself angling his stride so it’d match Lancelot’s before he’d even thought about doing it.

Lancelot smirked. “And what, you couldn’t stand Guin any longer? Did she—”

Arthur restrained his smile to something fit for a public setting and casually removed his hand to check on the time. It’d probably be easier to buy something on the way back for dinner, and then he could drop off something for Guinevere while Lancelot was being debriefed.

The other man wasn’t blushing, but only because his stubbornness was probably only exceeded by the hardness of diamond. “Double standard, isn’t it? I can’t, but you can?”

“If you absolutely feel the need to violate someone’s arse in public, you could at least make a better attempt at hiding it.” No point in adding _like I’ve just demonstrated_. The whole thrust of the lesson was to avoid overkill, after all.

“You’re really in a good mood,” Lancelot said. Mercurial as ever, his tone slid from offended to contemplative in a heartbeat. He sloped off a step and looked over Arthur. “How good?”

Good enough to believe that what had been a means of hiding from the past might, against all odds, turn into a lifestyle that could actually make him happy. Good enough to wish an old colleague well as he started down the same path that Arthur had gone. Good enough that old instincts made him a little afraid of it, and so he thought he needed a moment to cherish the present. “I borrowed Tristan’s car, so no, we’re not taking the subway.”

Lancelot blinked and almost tripped over a small boy. Even after Arthur had yanked him out of the way, he still kept staring at Arthur as if Arthur had lost his mind.

Arthur suddenly realized where Lancelot’s mind had probably gone. “No, we are not in there. Don’t even think about it.”

“Oh, good. I mean, aside from the fact that they’d probably added a coat of polish to the seat-leather, I was afraid you were turning into someone else for a moment. And this is where I shut up so you’ll consider a public loo. Right?” Hopefulness made Lancelot’s eyes frighteningly large. “It’s not like we don’t have precedent. The Met—”

The only real way to deal with Lancelot when he got on that kind of track was to walk just fast enough so his words couldn’t be heard, but slow enough so that he was still able to scramble after. Arthur was getting distressingly good at that art.

* * *

_6:45 P. M.: Remember to close and lock front door. Try to get up the stairs. Ice cream…remember whatever it was about ice cream in the morning._

“I was supposed to do…” Something with his tongue and Lancelot’s nipple…no, that wasn’t it. Though the way the other man was whimpering and writhing beneath Arthur was making a convincing argument for otherwise. Arthur lost his train of thought somewhere around the salty taste of the sweat filming Lancelot’s chest, and the delicious way a lick would cause both Lancelot’s nipple and his balls, cupped in Arthur’s hand, to tighten, and probably the sinfully close fit of Lancelot’s arse as Arthur slid back into it.

Nails dug hard into Arthur’s back, and then heels joined them as Lancelot did his damnedest to lock his legs around Arthur’s neck. He couldn’t quite bend that far, but the distance he did bend did interesting things to how Arthur’s prick pressed into his arse, and thus changed the timbre of his moaning in an intoxicating fashion.

“…supposed to fuck me. Bend me over the goddamned…never mind…just…Christ…”

They were far, far too late to make it up the stairs. Not that Arthur particularly cared.


End file.
